As this seemingly never ending winter continues there is considerable pressure on getting all of the fixtures in before the end of the season. Such a situation puts great demands on players, management and supporters alike and a fairly low attendance at promotion chasing Bootle on Thursday night was testament to that.
Match Report: Stewart Taylor
The match started quickly on a dry but slightly uneven playing surface with both midfields working hard to close the space down for their opponents. As the half wore on with few, even half, chances at either end, the home side started to exert some influence on the match as player manager Neil Prince showed his undoubted class in midfield. The Hillmen, playing with a strong breeze behind them, stayed strong defensively but were struggling to keep the ball in the top third of the pitch leading to a loss of possession and increasing pressure in their own half.
As the half came to a close both sides could look back on very few goalscoring opportunities with the visitors restricted to one header by Ben Connolly and one shot by Sam Marshall in a largely untroubled half for both goalkeepers.
The second half started much as the first had ended with Bootle, very sharp to the ball, controlling possession in midfield. The first opportunity of the half came in the 52nd minute when the ball was worked in from the right by Bootle and the final pass found Prince with an opportunity to shoot. This he did and his left footed shot beat Ben Proctor in the Glossop North End goal down to his right to open the scoring in favour of the home side. Glossop North End responded by bringing on Darren Hamilton from the bench in an attempt to give more options up front.
The match continued to be in favour of the home side although the Hillmen worked extremely hard to try to match the pace of Bootle.
Bootle brought substitute Kevin Black into the action and he looked lively from his first contribution, constantly threatening to get behind the Glossop North End defence from wide on the right. On 76 minutes it was one of Black’s runs which led to a corner for Bootle from the right hand side. The corner was swung in and partially cleared by the Glossop North End defence. The ball was seemingly coming back comfortably for Proctor to deal with but he mishandled leaving Bootle striker Daniel O’Connor to smash the ball into the net from close range to double the home side’s advantage.
The Hillmen did not give up and kept in working really hard to get back into the match but their efforts were to no avail as Bootle managed to continue to dominate possession and play out the remaining time to end up deserved winners on the night.
By a strange quirk of the fixture schedule, Bootle are the visitors to Surrey Street on Saturday and Glossop North End must hope that some of the players absent on Thursday will be back in action.
Final Score: Bootle 2 Glossop North End 0
Glossop North End Team Proctor, Williams, Brown, Hazelden, Lugsden, Allen, Jones, Oakes, Mehmet, Connolly (Hamilton), Marshall.
